Snapchat evolved from an app with a handful of obvious naughty uses to a social media platform where you can both broadcast your life and watch content from a wide range of sources. Snapchat currently claims 191 million daily active users, but its parent company Snap recently admitted that the app's design is not intuitive to many.

The service is so popular that NBC will be producing a daily news show to airs exclusively on Snapchat, and the works of artist Jeff Koons will be virtually exhibited in the app as well. Here's how to get started snapping out photos and videos and become a Snapchat expert.

Finding Everything in the New Snapchat

Snapchat's redesign was announced on Nov. 29, 2017, made it to most users in early February 2018 and upset many of the app's users, by how it rearranged the interface, taking story posts with friends and merging them with chats on the left screen. And while Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel claimed the change was permanent, months of complaints, including a Change.org petition garnering more than 1.25 million signatures, pushed the company to redesign its redesign.

Now, Stories from your friends live on the right screen, as they used to. The only difference is that they're now visualized as tall rectangular tiles, rather than in a list. Over on the left screen, Snapchat still presents the tabbed Friends interface it rolled out in April, where 1-to-1 chats are seperated from group chats. A yellow dot appears next to unopened sections where you've got new content.

Moving stories from friends to the left screen was intended to place a distinction between your personal connections and the content from brands and celebrities. Celebs including Chrissy Teigen have wondered how much of a backlash it will take to get Snapchat to reverse course, while the tech-focused YouTuber MKBHD (Marques Brownlee) bemoaned how the updated app will draw eyes away from professional content creators.

To find your own content on the Profile page tap on the icon in the top left corner of the home screen, typically a Bitmoji. Here, you'll find your own story posts, and the ability to add friends.

The icon to the right of the timer, a downward-facing arrow, allows you to dump the shot you just took into your phone’s traditional gallery. It’s useful if hack snapchat account you want to save your shot for future purposes, as there’s no other way to do so once you’ve sent the picture out.

3. Set picture time limit.

Tap on the stopwatchlike icon in the lower left and you can set the specific time that you want your picture to be available for a friend to view. You can go all the way from a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 1 second to a maximum duration of 10 seconds.

4. Add a caption.

Tap in the middle of the picture, and you can add text on top of your photo or video. Tap on the T icon to change the caption from a line to text to a larger brick of text. After you've written a caption for your snaps, you can move, pinch and zoom that text to place it just where you want. Before you can pinch and zoom your caption, you'll need to have set the text to the larger font, by tapping on the T icon.

If you’re feeling a little nostalgia for "Draw Something," you can also tap on the icon in the upper-right corner of the screen to draw directly onto your image with varying colors of a virtual pen.

5. Send your snaps.

Click on the arrow icon in the lower right to get your shot ready to send. Up pops your friends list; select everyone that you want to receive your image, take one final breath of confidence and click on the now-displayed arrow in the lower right-hand corner.

Snapchat's Android users are getting the a plethora of new fonts to try out for the text they use to decorate their snaps. Just snap a photo or video, and tap the T icon at the top, and you should see a menu pop up above your keyboard, showing a series of fonts that you tap to select and browse by scrolling left and right. iOS users are still waiting for this new option.

How to record without holding the shutter

iPhone owners don't need to keep finger on the shutter button in order to record videos in Snapchat, as long as they know this secret trick. Open the Settings App, and select General. Then tap Accessibility, and select AssistiveTouch, which will make a white dot appear on your screen.

Then, toggle the switch next to AssistiveTouch to the On position and then tap Create New Gesture. Then, tap and hold on the center of the screen in a very tight circular pattern until the recording bar is full. Tap Save at the top right corner, name this gesture with a memorable tag such as SnapVideo and then tap Save. Now, in the Snapchat recording screen, tap on AssistiveTouch bubble. Select Custom and then select SnapVideo (or whatever you called it).

You'll see a new circular icon. When you're ready to record, drag and drop it onto the capture button, and you're recording without hands. Since you're drawing that pattern yourself, this process may require repeated effort, but it's worth for easier video recording. There doesn't seem to be a method for Android yet, but leave a comment below if you know of one.